


Coping

by justacr0w



Series: Bro/ Reader Shenanigans (AU) [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Reader-Insert, don't be weird about it, reader is dave's caretaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:10:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justacr0w/pseuds/justacr0w
Summary: It's been nine years since you last saw Bro. You've moved away, and moved on, but suddenly things come to a screeching halt and you're forced to confront the reality of the life you left behind.Very much a personal piece of writing for me. Again, reader's past closely matches my own.





	1. Part One

_It's late_ , you think to yourself, glancing at your phone to check the time. The phone says 2:45 am and you realize you've been hunched over this project for your boss for the last four hours without a break. 

"I've got to start setting alarms." You push back from your desk, stretching your arms over your head with a groan. You get to your feet, back popping, and meander into your kitchen to look for food.

While you browse your sparse cabinets and try to decide if rice and butter will be enough to keep you alive for three more days, your phone rings, startling you in the silence of your apartment. Grumbling, you go after it and raise an eyebrow at the unfamiliar number. The number itself is strange but the area code isn't- you'd know that set of numbers anywhere. It's from Houston, your hometown and current residence of one Dirk "Bro" Strider, your former best friend.

It's been nine years since you've heard from him, you realize as you hold the ringing phone with your finger hovering over the answer button. Nine years without any communication besides vague "happy birthday" texts and an occasional photo of Dave as he grew up. The last actual conversation you'd had with him had been at the airport the day your flight left, and all he'd said was "see ya." And now you're getting a phone call from his area code at nearly three am.

Curiously you answer on the final ring, expecting to hear the gravelly Texan drawl of your ex best friend. What you hear instead is the unmistakable mid-puberty squeak of a teenage boy.

"(Name)?" the voice says hesitantly. "It's Dave."

Several seconds of shock later, you force out a startled "Hey," as you sit back down at your desk and fiddle with your pencil. "What's up, kid? It's been forever."

"I'm okay," he says but his voice sounds strained.

"Dave, you sound like shit," you tell him bluntly. "What's wrong?"

"Hang on." 

There's the sound of shuffling and muffled conversation, and then a new voice comes on the line. "(Full Name)?"

"Yes...?" You feel a sense of dread building in your gut, but you tell yourself not to be stupid.

"This is Officer Jones of the Houston Police Department. I apologize for the lateness, but you are the listed emergency contact."

You're stuck clutching your pencil as the dread rises up even stronger while Officer Jones continues to speak to you. The officer is using a calm voice that you're sure would be reassuring to most people, but to you it just makes everything he says surreal. Your pulse is pounding heavy in your ears, blocking out most of the words anyway- you only manage to catch "bad accident" and "severe injuries" and something about a body. It's only after a minute or so of silence from you and a concerned police officer asking if you're still on the line that your brain connects the dots and you realize what exactly he's just told you.

Bro is dead. 

The Houston PD is asking you to identify his body. 

"I-I'm here," you say hoarsely, finally answering Jones's question.

"Good. I'm very sorry for your loss, but we do need you to come down here to ID the body as soon as possible. You're listed as the emergency contact on all the documents we found at the scene," Jones tells you gently. 

"R-Right." Your brain goes into autopilot for the next few minutes as you answer a ream of questions from the officer, confirm your phone number, and get confirmation that Dave is safe in the apartment and not injured. 

When the conversation is done, Officer Jones apologizes again, wishes you well, and hands the phone back to Dave, who immediately asks if you're okay. 

"I should be asking you that," you tell him quietly, slumping back in your chair and staring at your desk. 

"I'm okay, (Name), really," he says, but the strain is still obvious in his voice. 

"I'll be out there ASAP, hopefully tomorrow night. I'm gonna get the earliest flight I can, okay?" you tell him then as you boot up your computer. "How are you on food?"

"You know Bro," he says slowly. 

You swear quite violently; it seems nine years wasn't enough time for Bro to learn how to keep food in the house or how to be anything less than incompetent when it came to taking care of his brother. "There should be a credit card hidden in his top drawer. Go get it," you instruct Dave gently as you search for flights to Houston.

While he does, Dave grumbles about the mess, which makes you smile sadly. You remember all the times you tripped over the stupid puppets and shitty katanas in the night when you stayed over, and the one time you nearly took a door off the hinges when you fell on your way to the bathroom.

"Found it," Dave announces after a few minutes. 

"Good. Keep hold of it. As soon as some place opens in the morning, I want you to order some food. As much as you want."

"But-"

"No buts, kid. Order whatever food you want in the morning while I fight with the stupid planes to get my ass out there. You think that thing'll pay for my flight too?" 

He actually laughs a little and gives you the important numbers off the card so you can book your flight, which leaves your city in about seven hours. Despite that, you stay on the phone with Dave for another two, making damn sure the boy is actually okay and will be alright on his own until you can get back to Houston, and hashing out some details of your arrival and everything else. When he starts yawning every other word, you send him off to bed with a faint smile and an "I'll see you soon, kid." 

Then you get to your feet and go to your bedroom to start packing. As you throw any clean clothes you can get hold of into your battered suitcases, you dial your boss's cell phone and pray that she answers. 

She does, yawning the whole time. You briefly explain the situation to her and tell her you need at least a week off and an extension on your project. While she sounds irritated about that being delayed, she also seems understanding and wishes you a safe trip, telling you to call her when you know more. 

Once you hang up and throw your phone on the nightstand, you pause for a minute with your hands clenched in a shirt. Oddly enough, it's one you had snatched from Bro years ago on one of your many nights sleeping over to help take care of an infant Dave. The entire time you had been on the phone- with Dave, with Officer Jones, with your boss- there had been no tears at all, only a crushing sense of loss and dread. Now, as you stand alone in your bedroom with a single lamp burning beside you and the sound of traffic rushing past outside (the freeway cuts through your city less than two blocks away and even at this hour it's busy), reality hits you like a ton of bricks and you crumple to the floor with tears streaming down your cheeks.

His old shirt is still clenched in your hands, and you hold it to your heaving chest in an effort to ground yourself. You're not entirely sure how long you're on the floor like that, but when you finally get up and check your phone, there's less than three hours before your flight leaves. Sniffling and with snot dripping down your face, you get to your feet and finish packing everything, including your computer and everything else you plan on carrying onto the plane with you. 

You take a quick, scaldingly hot shower to relax yourself, throw on some jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt with some band logo on it, cram your sneakers onto your feet, and get your things together while you call a 24-hour cab service and book a ride to the airport. As you wait for it to arrive, you secure your apartment, turn off all your lights, and head down to street level. 

The ride to the airport is silent except for minimal polite interactions with your driver, and the airport itself is fairly quiet at this hour as you check your bags and sign in for your flight. Everything seems to be sort of swimmy and unreal as you go through the motions; you're fairly sure you're still in shock and that you just haven't really processed reality yet. You hope it waits for you to get to Houston before it does, because you don't relish the idea of having a hysterical breakdown in a metal tube thousands of miles in the air while surrounded by strangers.


	2. Part 2

Groaning in pain, you stumble your way off the plane into the airport in Houston and make your way to the baggage claim area. You fire off a text to Dave, letting him know you've landed safely and will be on your way, and fight through the throngs of people. Eventually you manage to find your bags and get outside into the fresh air, where you see a line of cabs waiting for fares.

You hail the least creepy looking of them and give the driver Dave's address as you throw your suitcases into the trunk. While you ride, your driver tries to chat with you but you're too out of it to really focus on what they're saying. The scenery flying by is bringing back all kinds of memories- times with your family, times with other friends, but mostly times with Bro and Dave. You remember clearly the night Bro called you in a panic because Dave was teething and how you raided the nearest drugstore for a remedy. And when Bro came down with some kind of flu and you had had to practically baby him for the week he was down. And plenty of times taking a young Dave out to a park while Bro worked, or out to eat, or just playing with him on the floor of the apartment while Bro did whatever it was he did with the dozens of cameras and freakish puppets.

"We're here," your driver says then, breaking you out of your reverie. 

"Shit, sorry. Thanks a ton," you mumble sheepishly, tossing some bills their way and fetching your bags from the trunk. 

They drive off, leaving you standing on the steps of your old apartment building with two suitcases at your feet and a carry-on slung over one shoulder. With a heavy sigh you head inside and start the long climb up to Bro's front door. On the way up, you stop by your old place out of curiosity and find a big "welcome to our home!" sign nailed to your old door. Weird, you never pegged this as a place that an average family would want to settle. Shrugging, you wearily climb the remaining four flights to Bro's door and hammer on it with your free hand. 

It takes a few minutes but eventually the door opens and you're greeted by a skinny kid in aviator shades with pale blond hair. He's wearing a red and white shirt and black jeans, and you can just spot the faintest hint of his collar bones poking out under his collar. God, he's so skinny. He looks you up and down, taking in your exhausted expression, the bags under your eyes, and the wrinkled state of your clothes, and gives you a faint smirk.

"You look like shit," he announces, opening the door wider.

"That's a fine hello, Dave," you snort, dragging your bags into the living room and dropping them by the futon. 

He gives you another little smirk and you can see hints of Bro in his expression. You drop your carry-on onto the futon and hold out your arms to him for a hug. Dave just stares at you, the smirk falling away from his lips.

"Dave?" you question, your voice concerned. 

"Yeah, uh... Bro wasn't the kind of guy for hugs... So, uh..." He shrugs you off and wanders into the kitchen, stepping over a broken katana on the way.

You follow, feeling slightly hurt by his coldness but telling yourself he's just grieving and it's nothing to do with you. 

Dave has pulled a bottle of apple juice from the fridge, and you can spot a container of leftovers in there before he closes the door. At least he did as you told him and got some food. You go to the cabinets and carefully open one, expecting to be attacked by puppets or swords, and are pleasantly surprised to find there aren't any. At least not in this particular cabinet. There's also nothing else in there, either. Dave wasn't kidding last night, you realize.

"So, uh... what's up?" he asks awkwardly as you both stand in the kitchen. 

You turn around to face him, leaning on the counter, and sigh. "I don't even know, kid. It's been nine years. Last time I saw you, you only hit my knee."

He grins a little, sipping on his apple juice, and you shake your head.

"How's school? Friends?"

He shakes his head in response. "School is shit and most of my friends are online."

You nod and cross your arms. "Not surprising. The schools around here were always hell."

You lead him back out into the living room and continue to chat with him idly for a long time, trying to get some idea of the person he's become since you last saw him at age four. His answers are kind of short and vague, which you pass off as the awkwardness of seeing you again after so long with no contact.

At some point you get up to pee, and as you're headed down the hallway you catch a glimpse of more cameras than you recall ever being in the apartment. You ask Dave about it when you come back, and he shrugs it off. 

"That's Bro for you," he says calmly.

"There were _not_ this many cameras the last time I was here, and there damn sure weren't any in your room last time either. What the hell was he doing putting those there?" you grumble, flopping on the futon again.

Dave shrugs it off once more. "Normal. He knew all my passwords too."

"He _what_?" You sit up, your eyes narrowing.

"Bro was like that. He was paranoid, (Name). You know that."

"Not paranoid enough to violate your privacy. What the actual fuck. Those are coming out of there."

The younger Strider- the only Strider now, you realize- seems a little surprised by your anger, but again shrugs it all off like it's nothing. You grumble about it some more, but eventually the conversation dies off to a more comfortable silence as Dave turns on the TV and flips through several channels.

That night, you order takeout again and watch a couple of movies with Dave, and gradually some more facts about his life with Bro after you left emerge during your conversation. You find yourself getting angry with your former best friend for his complete lack of respect for his younger brother, and for his carelessness about raising him. It's all very vague and phrased casually, like Dave is trying to minimize things and make it seem normal, but you're practically shaking with rage by the time you send him to bed.

As you sit in the mostly silent apartment, you can hear a vague murmur coming from Dave's room, and you figure he's either working on his music or chatting with one of his friends. Either is fine, you're just just glad he's keeping busy for the moment. With a grunt, you stand up and start pacing the living room, finally noticing just how many cameras there are, and how many creepy goddamn puppets. You don't see Cal, though, so you guess the freakish thing is in a closet somewhere.

In the kitchen, you discover yet more cameras hidden in the cabinets and even the fridge. In fact, the only room you don't find cameras in is the bathroom. Feeling creeped out, you busy yourself cleaning up the living room and kitchen. By cleaning up, you mean shoving the freaky puppets into boxes and bags and cramming said boxes and bags into a corner where you don't have to look at them. Then you flop back onto the sofa and stare up at the ceiling with your blood still boiling.

The entire apartment feels weird though, like something's missing. And despite your immense anger at him, you realize what's missing is Bro. The weirdly comforting _oppressiveness_ of his presence is gone, and you're not even sure what that phrase actually means. All you know is that the place feels almost freakishly empty without him in it, and you find yourself constantly glancing at the front door like he's going to walk through it at any moment with that stupid smug expression on his face. 

"You asshole," you mutter at the empty living room. "What the fuck were you thinking?" 

A little while later, you're curled up on the futon still, trying to sleep because the morning will come all too soon and you'll have to face the reality of the situation, when you hear something strange. Muffled sounds coming from Dave's room. At first you try to pass it off as things teenage boys do in the privacy of their rooms, but then you remember that Dave isn't used to privacy. He wouldn't be doing that shit because the fact that he can is still too new to him. So you get to your feet and make your way through the dark apartment to the closed door of Dave's bedroom. You hover for just a minute to be sure of what you're hearing, and when you catch a choked sob, you knock firmly to give him some warning.

"Dave? It's me, can I come in?" you call through the door.

There's only a startled, almost panicked silence for a few minutes, and then some shuffling and rustling of sheets. Then Dave answers in the affirmative.

You slowly open his door and hover there, not actually entering his room just yet. Dave is sitting up on his bed, shades in place and what looks like a soundboard of some kind within reach. He looks perfectly calm in the faint light from his computer screen, but you can see that his hair is mussed and out of place, as though he'd tried to fix it before you came in.

"What's up?" he asks calmly.

You look him over, and let out a faint sigh. You're positive he was crying just a moment ago but he's putting on a brave face for you. Possibly because Bro hated it when he cried as a child, you recall. "Nothing, I just... I just wanted to make sure you were okay," you tell him after a moment. No sense bringing attention to the tears unless he's ready to talk about things.

"Peachy," he says, giving you a thumbs up.

"Right... You know... You know you can talk to me, right, Dave?" you say slowly. "About anything. Doesn't matter what it is- you can talk to me and I won't get mad. I promise."

He gives you a curious look and nods silently. "Yeah, I got it. Cool."

You start to say something else, but give up on it and wish him goodnight instead, closing his door gently and walking away. 

Back in the living room, you drop onto the futon one more time and lay back. Your eyes roam the ceiling until they land on the trapdoor that you never saw opened in the entire time you knew Bro. He'd always told you it was basically an attic, and that he used it sometimes to sneak in or out of the apartment without using the door, since it connected to the roof. You realize that's probably where Cal is, and you're immediately tempted to bolt the door shut. You hate that stupid puppet, and you're sure Dave does too.

_Oh well_ , you tell yourself, rolling over to face the TV, _I'll deal with that shit later._


	3. Part 3

In the morning, you wake up halfway on the floor with your feet in the air and an Xbox controller next to your head. Your phone is ringing loudly in the silence, and you groan as you try to find it. When you do, you see that it's the cops. You answer with a grimace.

"Did you make it to Houston safely?" Officer Jones asks you once the formalities are completed.

"Yeah, thank you. Got in late yesterday afternoon." 

"That's good. Will you be able to come down sometime today?"

You stiffen, sliding further off the futon as your muscles tense. Right, that's why he's calling you. Shit, you'd almost managed to forget in the few hours you slept. "Uhh, yeah, sure. I just need to get ready," you mutter.

"Excellent. We'll be expecting you." 

After you hang up, you roll onto your side and land completely on the floor. You don't bother to move for a good long time because your eyes are filled with tears again. You don't want to do this. At all. But you don't have much of a choice. Dave can't because he's just too damn young, and god only knows how much it'd fuck him up to see his brother's corpse. God knows how much it'll fuck you up, for that matter.

Eventually you get to your feet and dig out some clean clothes from your suitcases, then head to the bathroom to shower and make yourself look like slightly less of a disaster than you feel. Afterward, you hammer on Dave's door and wait for him to answer you, letting him know you're heading out and to see if he wants anything. He doesn't, so you grab your stuff and leave the apartment.

At the police station, you're greeted by a secretary who calls Officer Jones for you, and the unpleasant task of identifying Bro's body begins. You're escorted through the station to their tiny morgue, and the person in charge there gives you a sympathetic look as they roll out a metal table with a human shaped lump on it, covered by a sheet.

Already you feel a huge lump in your throat and your hands begin to shake. The room starts to waver a bit as the morgue tech takes hold of the sheet. Gritting your teeth, you shrug off Officer Jones's support and steel yourself for the moment of hell about to greet you.

The sheet is pulled back just enough to reveal the head and shoulders of the body beneath it, and you nearly black out then and there. Officer Jones takes a firm hold of your upper arm and keeps you upright as you force yourself to look at the pale face below you.

"T-That's him..." you whisper, and turn away as fast as you can.

Officer Jones waves at the morgue tech, who covers the body and does what they need to do while you focus on not throwing up. You stumble your way out of the morgue and into the hallway, followed by Officer Jones, and lean on the wall with your stomach heaving and head throbbing. Your hands are shaking violently, and so is the rest of you as you slide down the wall to the floor with your knees pulled to your chest.

"Are you alright?" Officer Jones asks gently.

"Peachy," you choke out sarcastically, not even realizing you're echoing Dave from the night before.

He lays a hand on your shoulder and waits patiently for you to recover enough to stand on your own. When you do, he takes you into a small interview room sort of place and lays a bunch of paperwork on the table. Said paperwork takes a good two hours to fill out, and by the time you're done, your eyes are burning from unshed tears and strain. 

"I know this must be very hard for you," Officer Jones says kindly, and you nod in response. "Unfortunately there's going to be more for you to deal with, since Mr Strider didn't leave a will that we know of. That means by state law, everything will pass to his younger brother, but David is not eighteen yet so the state will remain involved."

You look up at him. "What happens to Dave though?"

"Pardon?"

"Dave's only thirteen. Bro- sorry, Dirk- was his only relative and his legal guardian. He's dead, so what happens to Dave?" 

Jones nods slightly, shuffling some papers around. "Seeing as we can find no other relatives, David would become a ward of the state of Texas until he reaches the age of eighteen, at which point he would most likely gain control of his brother's estate."

You sit back in your seat, chewing on your lip, mind racing. You don't want Dave to end up in the foster system- you had enough friends in school who dealt with that to know it sucks. But are you really ready to raise a child? Part of you figures that it'd be more like raising a sibling, given the age difference, and another part of you thinks you'd at least be a damn sight better guardian than Bro had ever been. 

"What about me?" you ask finally. "Can I take him?" 

Jones looks surprised, but thoughtful. "You'd have to go to court to get legal guardianship, but it would keep him out of the foster system. And since you already know the kid, they're more likely to agree."

"Then how about you file whatever you need to and get me set up for a court date?" you suggest.

Jones nods and you spend another hour with the officer figuring out what needs to be done and getting things set up, talking to people at the local courthouse and everything. By the time it's all finished, you have a court date in three days' time and a pile of paperwork to keep safe, along with a list of the crap you'll need for court. 

He sees you out of the building with a friendly wave, and you trudge back to the apartment to collapse. Your head is killing you at this point, both from emotional strain and from the horrendous amount of paperwork you just had to fill out, and all you want to do is collapse on something soft and go to sleep.

When you get back though, Dave is awake and out of his room, slumped on the futon and playing some bullshit game on the Xbox. He waves one hand at you as you enter with the paperwork shoved under your arm, and you force a smile for him. 

"So..." you say blandly, flopping down in Bro's computer chair and spinning it to face the teenager with the paperwork on the desk behind you, "how d'you feel about going to court?"

Dave stares blankly at you from behind his shades. "What?"

You jab a thumb over your shoulder at the papers you brought home. "That crap right there is pretty much all set to make sure you don't end up in the foster system if you don't want to."

"The hell are you talking about, (Name)?" he asks. 

"I'm saying you can come live with me at my place. I become your legal guardian, make sure you get food and take your ass to school, and you get a place to live for the next however many years until you decide you're ready to move out." 

He's silent for a good long time, during which you spin the chair and face the window, propping your feet up on the desk. You know it's a startling revelation and he's probably stunned by the idea, so you don't pressure him to answer you at all. After a while though, he spits out a response. 

"Why?"

You turn back slightly, raising an eyebrow. "Why what?"

"Why would you... do this? Why would you want me around? I'm sure you've got a hella good life being on your own, doing fun shit all the time and having friends over and shit, so why?"

You snort slightly and drop your feet down to turn back completely. "Dude, I live in a place that's probably half this size right now, and the most I go out is to buy groceries. I don't do that crazy party shit Bro used to- not since he and I stopped talking. Having you around will be a nice change of pace." 

He seems surprised again, so you shrug and get up to go in the kitchen to find something to nibble on from the leftovers. As you chuck the food in the microwave, you lean on the counter and watch him play his game. 

"You don't have to answer right away, okay? Court date's in three days, so you've got until then to decide what you wanna do. Don't feel pressured to say yes just because I'm here and all that shit, either. You get to make your own decision," you tell him, retrieving your food and stabbing it with a scrounged up fork. 

"Can I think about it?" he asks.

"Of course, dude. You've got three days, so think all you want."

While Dave continues to play on the Xbox, you finish eating, wash up the few dishes laying in the sink, and busy yourself with more cleaning. You want Dave to have a chance to relax and not worry, given his circumstances, so you don't ask him to help you just yet. You'll save that for when the time comes to remove the cameras from his bedroom. At the moment, you simply clean the living room and kitchen around him, piling bags of rubbish by the door to be taken out later. 

Once the kitchen is cleaned to some degree of normalcy and you can move without tripping over things, you start disconnecting and removing the cameras in there, leaving them on Bro's desk. Several of them are high quality and you debate trying to sell the things to get some extra money as a cushion. For the moment, though, you just box each one up with its various components and stack the boxes in an unused corner. 

"(Name), take a break, would ya? You're running around like some crazy-ass chicken," Dave says finally, about two hours later.

"Sorry," you reply with a laugh, dropping into the computer chair. "Once I get going, it's hard to stop." 

He snorts and flops back on the futon, legs crossed in front of him. You're struck again by just how much he looks like Bro in this moment, and have to shake your head to clear away some memories you'd rather not think about. 

"Let me know when you're ready and we'll get rid of those cameras in your room, okay?" you tell him after a few minutes. "I'm trying to get this mess organized so it's easier to deal with later."

He nods, and the rest of the day goes smoothly; you manage to bond more with Dave as the hours pass and he tells you about his friends John, Rose, and Jade. He mentions some sort of game they all plan to play together once it launches, and tells you a little bit about his music, his "sick beats." You roll with it, wanting to get to know the kid you once considered your own and now seems like he might be again. 

By midnight, both of you are sprawled across the futon while some shitty b-movie plays on the TV. Dave then asks you something that makes your eyebrows fly up.

"(Name), is it bad that I miss him?"

"Huh?" 

"Bro. I miss him. Is that bad?" Dave's not looking at you, though it's hard to tell behind the shades. His shoulders have tensed up a little and he seems very much on edge.

You tilt your head to the side. "What brought that on?"

He shrugs. "You seemed super pissed when you found out about the shit he used to do, and John says it wasn't normal. He says it was super shitty. So I guess Bro was super shitty. But I miss him anyway. Is that bad?"

It takes you a moment to answer, and you have to choose your words carefully; you're unsure how Dave might take what you say, so you want to be cautious. "Nah, Dave, it's... it's not bad that you miss him. He was your brother, and he was always there. Now he's not and that's fuckin' weird. So you're gonna miss him for a while," you say finally, running a hand through your hair.

"Even with how shitty he was?" 

You nod. "Yeah, dude. I went through this shit myself when I was a kid so I know how it is. It's gonna be weird as shit for a good long time, but it's not bad to miss someone, even if they turned out to be a shitty parent." 

Dave gives you a look, his head tilted curiously. "What do you mean?" 

"Hm? About me going through this shit?"

He nods, so you look up at the ceiling with a faint sigh. You're not sure you want to dig into your past right now, not when you still haven't completely processed Bro's death or the fact that he ended up being a shitlord supreme. But Dave is curious and part of you figures it might help him cope with his own grief a little better. 

So you start telling him about your childhood, how it was before you moved to Houston and met Bro, how things were with your family. You fill him in on the way your dad treated you- the constant neglect and emotional bullshit, the lack of support, the works. Then you tell him how your dad died when you were a teenager, how much it devastated you at the time and how often you grieved over it. How long it took you to learn to process what had happened and the work you're still doing in order to recover. 

"See, I didn't realize that the shit my dad pulled was abuse until I was grown," you conclude. "You were already in the picture by the time I started figuring that out, and right up until then, I still grieved for my dad and missed him and said I loved him. Even though I knew the shit he pulled was wrong and hurt me, I always figured it was okay because he was trying his best. So in my heart I still missed him and cried over him."

Dave is silent for a few minutes, looking deep in thought and chewing on his lower lip. "What about now?" he asks finally. 

"I hate him," you say neutrally. "Not a shred of sympathy left for him, and I'm still working to undo the damage."

"You think I might hate Bro someday?" he asks then, his voice low.

Hesitating to think about your response, you sit up straight and look directly at Dave. "You might," you tell him. "But you might not. It depends, and however it works out is okay. There's no one right way to deal with grief or with trauma, so don't feel bad if you still have to cry over him some days. It might take years to get past this shit, maybe the rest of your life. And if you come out on the other end of the process still caring about him, that's okay. If not, that's okay too."

Dave returns your direct look, and you can see his shoulders starting to shake. A single, barely-there tear runs down his cheek from behind his shades, and you extend your arms to him silently. He shakes his head, turning away from you before pulling his shades off to rub furiously at his eyes.

Without a word, you glance away to give him some privacy, and wait until he's got his shades back on before speaking again. "It's gonna be hard, Dave. I know it is. But you don't have to go through this shit alone, okay? I'm here and I'll do whatever I can to help." 

"... You sound like one of those cheap Lifetime movies," he says thickly, and you laugh. 

"Yeah, well, sometimes we all need a cheap Lifetime movie," you reply, one arm still casually extended his direction across the back of the futon. 

Dave shakes his head, and you're positive he's rolling his eyes behind those damned shades. But he scoots closer to you anyway and lays his head hesitantly on your shoulder. You tuck that arm around him in a half-assed hug and smile faintly in the dim light from the TV. 

You're not ready for any of this, and neither is he, but you think you'll both be okay. Eventually. After everything is dealt with, you think you'll both begin to heal, and you're just glad that Dave won't have to do it alone like you did. He'll have a support system- you, his friends, maybe a therapist if he decides he wants one- and you'll get through all of this together.


End file.
